Values and Professional Career

"Human beings have grappled with issues of right and wrong, morality and law,

and ethics and duty ever since human beings began to engage in abstract thinking"

(Lester 2003, 225). This struggle is due to multiple and sometimes conflicting inputs to

our lives and the relationship between these inputs. These can be our religion, our family,

society and the law. Each person must sort through these inputs and determine what is

important to them as an individual. This, then, becomes the basis of our professional

values (Winston 2005, 235).Privacy can be defined as "the

claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine for themselves when, how and to

what extent information about themselves is communicated to others" (Cate 1997, 22)."Integrity includes

but goes beyond honesty. Honesty is telling the truth - in other words, conforming our

words to reality. Integrity is conforming reality to our words - in other words, keeping

promises" (Scarnati 1997, 25).Professional values are often supported by ethical principles and the code of

ethics of professional associations (Winston 2005). The American Library Association

(ALA) has developed their Code of Ethics with an introduction that states, "The

principles of this Code are expressed in broad statements to guide ethical decision

making. These statements provide a framework; they cannot and do not dictate conduct to

cover particular situations" (ala.org). With this statement, I believe my professional

values are in line with and supported by the ALA Code of Ethics. My most important

professional values, as defined above, fall in line with the first three and the last item of

the ALA Code of Ethics:

I. We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully

organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased,

and courteous responses to all requests.

II. We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library

resources.

III.

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